by As warming sea temperatures and pollution continue to degrade the world’s coral reefs at the an unprecedented ratescientists are investigating the possibility of preserving them — externally space.
The idea is to store a biorepository – a biobank that stores samples of biological material cooled to such a low temperature that it is essentially suspended in time – inside a permanently shadowed crater on the moon, whose their frigid temperatures, according to scientists, suitable to preserve such a facility for hundreds of years. The samples, in this case coral genetic material, would be returned to them World on demand and reseeding in our oceans to restore living reefs.
“There is no place on earth cold enough,” Mary Hagedorn, senior research scientist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Biological Conservation Institute, told Space.com. This includes the coldest regions of our planet — the north and south poles — which are warming due to climate change at rates faster than any area in the world.
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So scientists are unlikely to be able to preserve samples at the necessary frigid temperatures for hundreds of years, Hagedorn said. “Who knows what the poles will look like? they said changing the fastest.”
Similar to procedures used in human sperm banks, it is the technique used by scientists to freeze and store coral germ cells (sperm and larvae) involves cooling the specimens to a temperature close to that of liquid nitrogen, which measures at −196 degrees Celsius (−320 degrees Fahrenheit). In comparison, even the coldest place on Earth would feel warm — The East Antarctic Plateau, for example, has a bone-chilling temperature of −98 degrees Celsius (−144 degrees Fahrenheit).
Craters marked on the polar regions of the moon, however, do not receive direct light, thanks to the axis of the moon being almost perpendicular to the direction of the moon. the sunand light The temperature drops to −250 degrees Celsius (−415 degrees Fahrenheit) there, making it part of the the coldest places in our solar system. These conditions, Hagedorn argues, are favorable for storing the frozen samples for hundreds of years.
‘Frozen and alive’
The standard practice of freezing and preserving biological material, known as cryopreservation, pauses all biological activity such that the specimens remain “frozen and alive,” said Hagedorn, who is an expert on cryopreservation. “It’s like if you pushed the time button and it said, ‘OK, stop now.'”
So far, there are scientists collected samples of living colonies, skeletons and genetic material of 200 species of coral and stored safely – but, to put that in perspective, there are about 1,000 known species of coral in the world, so about 800 are left conservation. This urgency to collect the remaining species is further emphasized by the fact that marine heat waves, as a result of global warming, put biological stress on corals and “make their reproductive material too weak to withstand the intensity of of cryopreservation and thawing,” Hagedorn. written in an article published in mid-April in The Conversation.
Hagedorn is part of a team that has been until now cryopreserved more than 50 species of coral from the Great Barrier Reef, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, among other places. The samples are kept in biorepositories around the world, but because they are located on Earth they are susceptible to the harmful effects of climate change, she said. In 2017, for example, meltwater from Arctic permafrost that had melted due to extreme temperatures violated secure biorepository from Norway. This was a biobank protecting the doubling of the world’s top species; thankfully, no seeds were reported lost, but the risk was high. The moonfortunately, these questions would not.
Storage services on the moon
Sending a box of frozen living cells to the dark pocket of the moon comes with unique challenges, and scientists are still figuring out the blueprints of the plan. For one, the biobank must be wrapped in radiation-resistant packaging to protect the frozen samples during time on the moon, which is airless and therefore very susceptible to solar damage. Another concern is how the biorepository could be placed inside a lunar crater, as navigating the icy floors of these features is a challenge for astronauts. Hagedorn said it could be a job for robots, perhaps like the ones in the shape of a dog NASA yes working on to someday explore hazardous areas on the moon—perhaps with packs of robotic companions.
As a trial, Hagedorn co-directed an effort to collected and crypreserved 10 fins of Starry goby, a tiny fish whose body is sprinkled with iridescent blue spots. They are found in abundance near coral reef habitats.
Eventually, she hopes to find funding and partners to test how these samples fare under space-like conditions on Earth. Then, run a test on the International Space Station (ISS) that shows how different the returned samples are compared to their counterparts on Earth, which could guide the packaging requirements — that is, if the ISS is still there. Hagedorn estimates that it would take three to five years from the time she receives funding to send samples to the ISS, a timeline that may be too long given the question. ISS scheduled retirement in the year 2030.
Still, “that stuff is easy compared to trying to decide where to go on the moon and how to get there,” she said. The governance of travel and the location of the facility on the moon will be “very complex and could take years.”
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Hagedorn is not the only researcher exploring the possibility of a lunar biorepository. In 2021, University of Arizona researcher Jekan Thanga proposed sending an ark filled with cryogenically frozen seeds, sperm and eggs of 6.7 million Earth species to lava tubes on the moon as a “modern global insurance policy.” His team estimated such an effort would require 250 rocket launches; for context, 40 launches were made over a period of ten years to develop the ISS.
If a biostorage on the moon succeeds one day (no doubt the lofty goal) scientists hope it could act as a hedge against the loss of not only coral but also millions of other species – maybe even people.
Still, not everyone agrees it’s a good suggestion. “I don’t think so [the] the right idea right now,” said Noah Greenwald, director of endangered species at the Center for Biological Diversity CBS News. “I think we need to focus on protecting more of the natural world, so we don’t lose species in the first place.”
